Donald Fehr Holds Tight to His Composure and His Principles – NYTimes.com Fehr has often spoken of a new “playbook” for sports leagues, in which they impose salary caps and lock out players to force them to accept pay cuts. […] Fehr said “the same people” are behind these tactics “regardless of the sport” —…

Mayor’s Manor reports that Dwight King has “signed a minor league contract” and is going to play in Manchester. I assume more details are forthcoming. All of the Kings’ waiver-exempt players (Andrei Loktionov, Jordan Nolan, Slava Voynov) were loaned to Manchester before the September 15 lock-out date, per a special agreement between the NHL and…

I’ve been strolling down memory lane, in the form of the archives of Rich Hammond’s first Kings blog, Inside the Kings. I believe I found my first three comments on the blog, which are interesting (if only to me) because of how naively optimistic I was about the 2007-08 season, and because of how different…

October 27, 2006, six years ago this month. The LA Daily News unveils its blog devoted to the Los Angeles Kings, to be written by reporter Rich Hammond. Dean Lombardi had been GM for all of five months. Jonathan Bernier and Trevor Lewis had been selected in the first round of June’s draft. Pavol Demitra…

Terry Murray returning with the Adirondack Phantoms – ESPN (Scott Burnside) Although the Kings lobbied to have Murray’s name engraved on the Stanley Cup, Murray’s name was left off. GM Dean Lombardi ensured, however, that Murray will receive a Stanley Cup ring, a nod to the work Murray did in helping establish a defensive identity…

No sport has controlled its athletes as effectively and totally as hockey. Though fabulously profitable in the long-term, the NHL has always been able to convince the players — in good times or bad — that the clubs couldn’t afford the salaries, benefits and working conditions they demanded, and that if they persisted, the players…

[I wrote a more exhaustive post on this topic in 2013, The History of Cup-Winning Teams and Their Petitions, which covers the criteria for inclusion over the years, and how teams have chosen to petition — or not — the league on behalf of players who don’t qualify.] Yesterday, we learned that the Kings did…

[…] Nolan and Loktionov arrived in town this past week to report to Monarchs training camp. Voynov, however, did not and his status remains a mystery.

It was rumored that Loktionov might opt to go play back home in the KHL in Russia and that could be where Voynov ends up. But for now, the 22-year-old Loktionov, who played in 39 NHL regular season games and two playoff games, is here and he wants to play hockey.

“Here, I just I need to play my best game,” Loktionov said. “I played 30 games. I think it’s good for me to take it step-by-step, one game, then 20 games, then 40 games. Hopefully I will play this year a full season.”